Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Cardiol. Dec 26, 2016; 8(12): 703-718
Published online Dec 26, 2016. doi: 10.4330/wjc.v8.i12.703
Hematological disorders and pulmonary hypertension
Rajamma Mathew, Jing Huang, Joseph M Wu, John T Fallon, Michael H Gewitz
Rajamma Mathew, Department of Physiology, New York Medical College, Valhalla, NY 10595, United States
Rajamma Mathew, Jing Huang, Michael H Gewitz, Section of Pediatric Cardiology, New York Medical College, Valhalla, NY 10595, United States
Joseph M Wu, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, New York Medical College, Valhalla, NY 10595, United States
John T Fallon, Department of Pathology, New York Medical College, Valhalla, NY 10595, United States
Author contributions: All authors contributed to this manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: None of the authors has conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Rajamma Mathew, MD, Section of Pediatric Cardiology, New York Medical College, Rm A11, Basic Science Building, 15 Dana Rd, Valhalla, NY 10595, United States. rajamma_mathew@nymc.edu
Telephone: +1-914-5943283
Received: June 29, 2016
Peer-review started: July 1, 2016
First decision: August 5, 2016
Revised: September 13, 2016
Accepted: October 5, 2016
Article in press: October 9, 2016
Published online: December 26, 2016
Core Tip

Core tip: Oxidant injury, inflammation, impaired nitric oxide bioavailability and coagulopathy that occur in hematological diseases lead to endothelial dysfunction and thrombo-embolism with subsequent development of pulmonary hypertension (PH). In addition, treatment used for these disorders such as immunosuppressive drugs, splenectomy, bone marrow transplantation and radiation therapy are also known to cause endothelial damage and thrombo-embolism leading to PH. Furthermore, there is a causal relationship between vascular and hematopoietic systems. Patients with chronic myeloproliferative diseases are at a risk of developing PH; and the occurrence of myelofibrosis contributing to impaired hematopoiesis is not uncommon in PH.